The Vengeance
by Tobias Flies Free
Summary: A year after the events of The Salvation, Rachel and Tobias find themselves embroiled in an international affair when Marco's home is attacked by a rogue Bug Fighter. But it turns out this rabbit hole goes a lot deeper than it looks from the surface...
1. Chapter 1

THE VENGEANCE

My name is Rachel Berenson.

That's not what I'm going by these days, though. Unless I'm home alone with Tobias and Loren, I'm Melissa Chapman. Even though it's been a year, I still haven't told my parents or my sisters I'm back from the dead, and I'm not sure if I ever will. I've had dinner with them a few times now, though, and it's been almost normal. Nearly pleasant.

But for now, I'm content to live with Tobias and his mom, even if sometimes it hurts watching them as they start to connect in the way a family should. They deserve each other, so who am I to complain? Besides, I get a free place to live and only pay half the grocery bills. It's a pretty sweet deal.

"What are you watching?" Tobias asked, flopping down next to me on the loveseat and leaning his head against my shoulder.

"That awful Animorphs prime-time soap on The CN," I said, making a face. "I can't _believe_ you guys left Marco in charge of our licensing rights."

Tobias shrugged. "Jake and I weren't in any condition to make corporate deals at that point. And you know Cassie."

On the TV, the ethereally beautiful twentysomethings hired to play our teenaged selves were involved in an ethereally beautiful chase scene with the show's very-not-ethereally beautiful substitute for Mr. Chapman.

"Quick, Rachel," said the guy I was pretty sure from context was supposed to be Jake to a woman who looked nothing like me in either of my bodies. "You and Marco go left. Cassie and I will go right. Mr. Norman can't chase all of us!"

"Why don't they morph?" Tobias complained next to me.

"Low budget, I guess," I said. "It's not like they're giving out the morphing technology to just anyone."

"And where the hell am I?" he continued, growing more indignant. "They're not even indoors!"

"_That_ I don't know. I've been watching for about twenty minutes and I don't remember anything remotely like this episode ever happening."

We finished watching the episode and agreed to start trying to catch it regularly to see if we could ever figure out what the hell was going on. Tobias grabbed the remote and started flipping around, finally settling on CNN.

"We are continuing our coverage on the Bug Fighter attack earlier today," the anchor said. "For those of you just tuning in, the small Asian nation of Taungu, best known for being the home of former Animorph Marco Black, suffered widespread damage in a massive attack by a rogue Bug Fighter."

Tobias and I looked at each other. His face was as blank as always, but I could feel my brow creasing into worried ridges.

"The spokesperson for the Yeerk population of Earth, Geran Three-Five-Two-Five, said in a public statement today that the fighter was not aligned with any of the planet's mainline Yeerk political groups. It is being speculated that this is connected to the kidnapping by Yeerk extremists of the former Animorph Tobias Harris last year."

"James," I muttered.

"I guess it was only a matter of time," Tobias said. He stood up from the couch and turned off the TV. "We should try to get over there and see if Marco and Jake are okay."

"Should we grab Cassie?" I asked.

"Last we heard she was still on probation for the incident last year," he replied, walking into our bedroom.

Before I could follow, my phone rang. Cassie. "Speak of the devil," I muttered. I hit the button to accept the call. "What's up?"

"Have you heard?" Cassie asked without preamble.

"Yeah, we just saw it on the news," I replied, following Tobias into the other room. "What's going on?"

"Christ, I don't even know." I could hear the tension in her voice. "The second the news hit I was whisked away to a debriefing, and ever since I've gotten out I've been at press conferences."

I raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know you did press conferences."

"I don't," Cassie said. "They just wanted me to sit onstage so they had an Animorph visible to the press. Anyway, this is the first time I've managed to get away to call you guys. They're talking about putting together a task force to go in and bail out Marco and I've been asked to be on that committee. You guys should pack in case I can get you approved for it."

"Already on it," I said, picking some shirts out of my dresser and handing them to Tobias, who tossed them haphazardly into the duffel bag. I frowned disapprovingly, but he stuck his tongue out at me and kept packing. "You know who you should get? The people who went on the Ax mission with the others. What were their names, Tobias?"

"Jeanne Gerard and Menderash-Postill-Fastill," he said. "But Menderash is a human _nothlit_, so I don't know if he's going under another name."

I repeated the information back to Cassie. "Thanks," she said. "I'll see what I can do." There was a brief pause. "I have to go. My boss says the first committee meeting is in a few and I should be there."

"Good luck," I said.

"I'll see you later, hopefully."

I flopped back on the bed, looking plaintively at Tobias. "What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?"

* * *

While we waited for Cassie to call back, we caught Loren up to speed over coffee. Worry clouded her eyes. "You're going into a war zone?" she asked.

"Not as far as we know," I said. "The Bug Fighter hasn't been seen since the attack. We're just going to see if Marco and Jake are okay."

"Then why the business with the task force?" she asked.

I looked at Tobias. We'd been hoping she wouldn't notice that. "Well, uh..."

Tobias cut in. "When we say it's not a war zone," he said, "that's technically true."

"Technically?" Loren raised an eyebrow.

"Everything's a bit chaotic with so much destroyed," Tobias continued reluctantly. "There's a lot of rioting and looting and stuff going on. You know how people can get."

Saying nothing, Loren closed her eyes and sat back in her chair, taking deep breaths. I was alarmed to see tears leaking from between her eyelids. "Loren?" I asked hesitantly, reaching out to touch her shoulder.

She leaned her cheek against the back of my hand and opened her reddened eyes. "I'm fine," she lied. "It's just... I've only had a year with Tobias as a real family."

Shifting guiltily in his seat, Tobias said, "Mom, I would love to just stay here. I mean it. Coming back to you was one of the best choices I've ever made."

"But your friends need you." Loren nodded, sniffling. "I understand. I mean it. It's just hard."

Tobias took his mother's hands in his. "I'll come back, Mom. I promise."

Just then, a knock came at the door. Grateful to leave and escape the intense chest pains the scene was causing me, I stood up. "I'll get it," I said, heading out of the kitchen and through the living room. I opened the front door and blinked.

Standing in front of me were three average-sized men with the same complexion and perfectly groomed light brown hair. All of them wore black suits with ties and sunglasses, and I could see from the bulge in their jackets that they were all packing heat. The one in the middle said, "Melissa Chapman?"

"That's me."

He held out some official-looking paperwork. "Theodore Bluestein, CIA. We need you and Tobias Harris to come with us."

Tobias emerged from the kitchen, Loren trailing behind. "Are you here about the task force?"

Bluestein nodded. "This is a matter of some urgency, so if you could follow us?" The three turned and headed toward a black car parked at the side of the road. Tobias and I followed after grabbing our bags and saying goodbye to Loren.

A brief car ride later, we were driving onto the tarmac of the airport. The car pulled up alongside a small jet plane and the CIA agents let us out of the car.

"Learjet 70," Tobias muttered. Seeing my surprised look, he grinned. "When you're in the air as often as I am, you start keeping track of anything whose engines you don't want to get sucked into."

"Why aren't we taking an orbital hopper?" I asked the nearest agent.

"Too conspicuous," he replied. "Easily targeted if the Bug Fighter should try to intercept us."

We climbed aboard the small plane and I fastened myself in. Tobias demorphed and I noticed that the CIA agents looked away uncomfortably. Morphing was pretty common among the military and spies these days, but I supposed it was still hard to get used to. It was hard to know, though — I had long since been desensitized to this particular morphing process. When Tobias finished, he hopped into my lap and Bluestein signaled to the pilot that we were ready to take off.

* * *

Hours later, one of the CIA agents gently shook me awake. "We're here."

"Where is here, anyway?" I asked as Tobias morphed back to human.

"Washington. Come on, they need you ASAP."

They herded us into another black car, this time one with the windows tinted on the inside so that it was impossible to see where we were going. "So much secrecy," I muttered.

"We are dealing with the CIA, Rachel," Tobias said.

"Are we, though?" I asked. "I didn't really get a good look at Bluestein's ID. And we haven't seen any other evidence they're CIA. I mean," I added as Tobias tried to cut in, "that's the point, I know. But for all we know this is just a trap. They didn't say anything about the task force until you did."

Tobias paused to think. "That's a good point. We need to stay alert."

"Maybe you should get feathery, just in case you need to morph quickly."

"Good idea." He demorphed quickly. Just as the morph completed, the car stopped and a new agent let us out. We were parked in front of a greasy-looking deli restaurant.

"_This_ is where we're having a top-secret meeting?" I asked incredulously. Without answering, the agent escorted us through the door. Nodding to the guy behind the counter, he led us into the back and opened what looked like a walk-in fridge. Inside, a Gleet Bio-Filter was between us and the opposite wall, where a keypad was set next to the door.

‹I've got a really bad feeling about this,› Tobias said privately to me.

I nodded.

The agent escorting us spoke into a walkie-talkie. "Disable the Bio-Filter, we've got a bird."

Within a second the faint glow in front of us faded and the agent stepped forward, tapping a brief sequence into the keypad. With a burst of pressurized air, the door started to slide open. As soon as the gap was wide enough, the agent ushered us in.

‹Oh_ Jesus_.›

In the room were at least nine armed Hork-Bajir. And all of them were looking at us.


	2. Chapter 2

THE VENGEANCE

_So in skimming through The Beginning again for details in this chapter, I noticed that there were some minor inconsistencies between it and The Salvation, mostly to do with Cassie's job and the nature of the Animorphs' ship theft. I'll be retconning some of those problems in this fic, but otherwise assume that wherever my canon diverges from Animorphs canon, it's AU._

* * *

Brown fur sprang from my body as I began to morph to grizzly. Tobias hopped down, preparing to do his own battle morph, but the Hork-Bajir amassed in front of us parted and Cassie stepped through. Sighing inwardly, I quickly reversed the morph.

"Thanks for at least stopping me before I ruined my clothes," I groused. Beside me, Tobias started to morph to human.

"Sorry," Cassie said with a self-deprecating smile. "This is my honor guard. The Hork-Bajir elders insisted."

"I'm just glad we didn't attack them," Tobias said, finishing his morph. "Uh, anybody got a spare pair of pants?"

The agent who had brought us in tossed him our duffel bag. Tobias pulled out some clothes and quickly put them on before Cassie led us over to a long table. Five people were already seated there. Cassie sat at the head of the table and I slipped into a seat next to her.

"Thank you all for coming," Cassie said. "As most of you know, I'm Cassie Chambers, Secretary of the Department of Resident Aliens. I'm also a former Animorph, as is my friend Tobias here." He nodded a greeting to the others at the table. "I've been appointed chair of the committee to form the Taungu task force. The details of your mission are in these folders, but I'm here to give you an overview." She handed out manilla folders and a few of the others started to leaf through them.

"The situation in Taungu is currently extremely precarious. The government is on the verge of collapse and there is widespread violence. Your mission is to extract Marco Black and Jake Berenson from the country, if possible. Current intelligence indicates that they're still living. It is possible, though we're considering it unlikely at the moment, that the people behind the Bug Fighter attack are still seeking them out to kill them. Your folders contains a dossier on each of the suspected attackers. In the event that you come into conflict with any of these people, you are authorized but not encouraged to use lethal force."

Cassie looked around the table. "Any questions?"

The woman sitting across from me spoke up. "How will we be going?"

"By boat, unfortunately. It's slow, but it's the least conspicuous way to get you there. You'll be met by a couple of CIA cars in Sandoway, Burma, splitting up for the trip to the Taungu border. After that you'll be on your own."

"Will we be armed?" asked a man sitting on our side of the table.

"No. Your morphing abilities will be enough." Cassie looked around the table. "If that's all, you're dismissed for the time being. Meet back here at 0700 for departure. Melissa, Tobias, stay behind so I can give you directions to the hotel you'll be staying at."

Everyone except the Hork-Bajir and the CIA agent filtered out of the room. After a nod from Cassie, the agent left as well. "You'll hit this in your dossiers," Cassie said, "but I wanted to let you know ahead of time so you aren't surprised. There is a secondary objective to the mission."

"I don't like the sound of that," I said darkly.

"I'm sure you'll fully approve," Cassie said, a note of irony coloring her voice. "It's actually a secondary retrieval. Secondary to the government, anyway, but you have a bit of a vested interest." She pulled a photograph out of the manilla folder and tossed it to the table in front of me. I held it in the light cast by the bare bulb nearby and examined it closely. The dark-haired woman in the headshot looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place her.

"Tobias?" I handed the photo over to him. His expression was, as usual, unreadable, but his eyes flicked to Cassie and I saw her give a slight nod.

"Rachel... that's Jordan."

The room spun. I grabbed the edge of the table to keep from toppling out of my chair, dimly aware of Tobias's supportive arm around my shoulders. "What... what is Jordan doing in Taungu?" I managed to stammer, forcing my equilibrium back into balance.

Cassie looked at me nervously. "Well... she's been living with Marco for several years now. They're engaged."

"_WHAT?_" Without being aware of jumping up, I was on my feet and my chair was clattering to the ground behind me. "Why the hell did nobody tell me about this? That slime! That utter cretin! How _dare_ he take advantage of my baby sister like that?"

Tobias stood up and pulled me into his seat. "I think I can see why you weren't told," he said wryly.

"From what I hear, they're quite happy," Cassie put in.

"Traitor," I said, shooting her a dark look. "Figures. My mother said she was away doing international reporting."

"Technically true," Cassie said. "She was working for the local newspaper while she lived there. Anyway, since she was living with Marco and Jake, she was almost definitely caught in the attack. The sources that lead us to believe they're still alive seem to indicate that she is as well, but the government isn't especially concerned with her recovery. It was only because I was the chair of the committee that I managed to get her in the dossier at all."

As my anger at Marco subsided, I felt sick with fear. My sister was with Jake and Marco, sure, but without being able to morph herself, Jordan was vulnerable. And Taungu right now was not a good place to be vulnerable. For the moment, though, there was nothing I could do. I was helpless.

I hate being helpless.

"Let's get to the hotel," I muttered irritably. "We need to get to sleep if we need to be here by seven."

"I'll drive you there," Cassie said. She gestured to one of the Hork-Bajir. "Falak Har will come with me. The rest of you stay here until my return." The honor guard saluted, and one of them stepped to Cassie's side. She turned back to us. "Let's get going."

* * *

"She's fine, Rachel."

"I don't want to think about it, Tobias."

I popped open another beer and slumped back into my seat. The TV was on, playing a re-airing of the Animorphs episode we'd seen earlier. The show didn't make any more sense this time around.

It was hard for me to believe it'd only been a scant seven hours ago we were watching and mocking it the first time. A month's worth of crazy seemed to have been stuffed into the past quarter day, and my head was reeling from the information overload. But above everything else, one thought was clear in my mind: I needed to save Jordan.

"Argh!" I threw my empty bottle at the wall. It shattered, sending glittering pieces of glass cascading to the carpet. Without saying anything, Tobias went to the closet, grabbed a dustpan, and cleaned up the pieces. Frustrated, I tore off my outer clothes and threw them on the bed.

"Going somewhere?" Tobias asked softly.

"I need to fly," I said. "I can't sit here and do nothing."

"We need to sleep, love," he said, wrapping his arms around me from behind. "Come on. Let's go to bed."

I broke free of his embrace. "There's no way I can sleep like this. I'm not even a little tired."

Tobias sighed, then demorphed. ‹I'll come with you, then,› he said, morphing directly to owl.

A few minutes later, we were taking wing from the hotel room's balcony. The last time I'd morphed an owl was shortly after breaking Jake out of prison, and I hadn't really been able to properly enjoy it then. Now, soaring silently above the night, I saw and heard everything. Straggling tourists leaving the bars, spies meeting covertly in alleyways, politicians sneaking to late-night trysts — the night was laid bare before my keen owl senses. I absorbed myself in the ins and outs of late-night Washington for a while, allowing my worries about Jordan to slip away behind the owl mind.

‹Tobias?›

‹Hm?›

‹I don't know if I could handle Jordan dying.›

‹Jordan's not going to die, Rachel.›

‹But what if she does?› I banked, heading back towards the hotel. ‹How do I manage? How do I keep living my life?›

Tobias laughed mirthlessly. ‹I am probably the exact wrong person to ask about that.›

‹I'm scared, Tobias.›

‹I know,› he said. ‹All we can do is do our job and hope for the best.›

Exhausted as I was after our flight, I fell asleep almost as soon as I demorphed and crawled into bed. But my dreams were tortured and nightmarish, full of images of Jordan, dead, dismembered, entrails spilling from her gut, killed by a bullet to the brain. Visions of Marco clinging to her and sobbing. A vivid scene of myself impaling Jake, who had thrown Jordan off a building, on my grizzly bear's claws. Impressions of a larger battle with hundreds of lives hanging in the balance. When I awoke at six, I hardly felt rested, but I was full of new purpose.

Jordan would not die. Her big sister was coming to save her.


	3. Chapter 3

THE VENGEANCE

The Beginning_ says that Jeanne was a member of the Deuxieme Bureau, but according to Wikipedia that was dissolved in 1940 when the Nazis took over, and the current French intelligence service is the _Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure_. Given that Wikipedia is not infallible, I would appreciate corrections if this is wrong._

* * *

About a month into the voyage to Taungu, as I sat in the bunk I shared with Tobias staring at Jordan's picture for what was probably the millionth time, it finally occurred to me to ask. "Tobias?"

‹Hm?› Tobias had spent as little of the trip as possible in his natural form — hawks don't do well with enclosed spaces or the ocean — but he was eating at the moment. A microwaved dead mouse, actually, the smell of which probably would have turned my stomach if I wasn't so used to it at this point.

"How did you recognize Jordan if you'd been isolated until I came back?"

‹It ties in to how she and Marco got together, actually,› Tobias admitted. ‹Hang on, let me morph and clean this up.›

Once he'd become human and disposed of the mouse's remains in the chute on our cabin wall, Tobias came to sit next to me on the bunk. He looked at the picture, but his eyes were unfocused, gazing into the past. "It was maybe... four years ago? Five? I'm not sure." He shrugged. "Time back then was kind of fluid. Anyway, Jordan came to the meadow. I'm not sure how she found it, or how she knew I'd gone back there. Maybe nobody ever told her I'd moved to Yellowstone or something, I don't know.

"Anyway, she found me." A rueful chuckle escaped him. "In retrospect, I was kind of harsh. Swore at her a bunch, tried to fly away. But then she said she wanted to know about you." He lay back on the bed, closing his eyes. "I couldn't tell her anything. I wanted to, but I just couldn't bear to bring it all back to the surface. So I sent her to the only person that I knew would tell her honestly."

"Marco."

"Exactly," Tobias said. My smack connected with his abdomen, startling him upright. "Jesus! The hell was that for?"

"It's all your fault," I said petulantly, but I smiled to let him know I was joking.

To be honest, the idea of Marco and Jordan wasn't as incredibly repugnant to me as it had been at first. If I were honest with myself — and I generally wasn't when it came to the topic of Marco — if Tobias had never existed, I probably would've ended up at least dating him. Sure, he could be obnoxious at times, and that ruthless, cold-blooded persona of his was abrasive as all hell, but if you managed to get past his defenses he was generally a good-natured person made vulnerable by the ravages of cruel chance. In that way, if no others, we were a lot alike, and that probably would have drawn us together.

And of course, out of my sisters, Jordan had always taken after me the most. Where Sara would follow trends like a puppy follows someone with Beggin Strips, Jordan tended to stick to what she loved, like I did. For Jordan it was writing, and unlike my gymnastics, that had paid off as her career in journalism.

But the flip side of being so like me was that Jordan spent a lot of her life trying to live up to my example, and when I was practically deified after my death, she just couldn't measure up. Cruel chance again. So I could see how she and Marco would end up together.

Not that I was going to stop this from giving Marco a thorough dressing-down. Making him sweat is always fun.

"Hey." Tobias poked me. "You're dwelling."

I sighed. "Just thinking." I lay back on the bed and pulled him down on top of me. A grin spread across my face as my features started shifting from Melissa's to my own. "Why don't you distract me?"

* * *

Life on the ship didn't vary much for the two-month journey to Taungu. At mealtimes we'd chat with the other members of the task force, and in between I'd sit around on my bunk, dwelling on the situation at hand.

I wasn't really sure what to make of our fellow passengers. Jeanne Gerard didn't talk much and her eyes had a closed, hunted look — probably, if what Tobias had told me was any indication, a result of the ill-fated trip of my namesake ship to rescue Ax. The dossier told me a bit about her background: four years with the French DGSE before going on the Ax mission, then two more years afterwards before joining up with a band of mercenaries in Central America. When she was recruited for the mission, she was serving time in El Salvador for involvement in a political assassination.

Gunnery Sergeant Warren Johnson was probably the most open of the two military guys assigned to the task force. A big guy with a friendly face and tattoos covering his upper arms, Warren often told us stories about his eight years in the Marines. He'd been involved in the police action in Jordan back in 2005 — a coincidence I derived quite a bit of dark amusement from — and though neither I nor Tobias had any desire to hear stories about combat, he often told fascinating and frequently hilarious stories about life in military bases. He'd trained in combat morphing under one of Jake's top students and was considered one of the best in the field.

Lt. Colonel Jim Lopez, on the other hand, was a small, serious guy who'd served with distinction in the Army for the past fifteen years. According to his dossier, he'd been awarded the Medal of Honor, several Silver Stars, and the Distinguished Flying Cross — the last of which he recieved for engaging in aerial combat with several enemy planes while _parachuting_ into Jerusalem during the Palestine War in 2002 and managing to shoot one down. When I asked him how he'd managed the feat, he just shrugged and mentioned he'd been equipped with a beam weapon for that mission. He was assigned to a morphing unit in 2007 and by 2009 was commanding it.

All told, a pretty impressive bunch of people, though Tobias and I surely had enough experience to match them. LTC Lopez was nominally in command of the mission, but Tobias had been granted the authority to supercede his orders if necessary. I didn't think we'd need to, though, given his extensive command experience.

We were all gathered in the mess for breakfast one morning when word came over to the loudspeakers that we'd be docking in Sandoway within the hour. "Everybody get your gear," Lopez said. "Gerard, you'll be with me in Car 1. The rest of you will take Car 2. We'll meet at the Taungu border in about eleven hours. If we lose contact and either car isn't there by 2100, it'll be presumed lost and the other car will go on alone. Any questions?" There were none. "Then let's get moving."

* * *

_Short chapter, and not a whole lot going on. Sorry about that. I could've kept going, but I'd rather get this out now than fight with it for another month. The action's gonna ramp up next chapter, I promise._


	4. Chapter 4

THE VENGEANCE

_Sorry this one took me forever to get out. I fought with it for ages before it finally started cooperating, and I'm still not a hundred percent satisfied with it. But I'm glad to have it finished, and we should have some interesting stuff coming up. Enjoy!_

* * *

Our trip to the border was relatively uneventful, all things considered. Our car skirted the eastern border of the capital state, Mandalay, hoping to avoid the notice of the military police. We were stopped a few times at checkpoints, but the CIA agent driving simply handed over his false ID with some money hidden underneath and we were allowed through.

At one such stop, I strained my eyes to peer through the car's tinted windows and into the checkpoint buildings beyond. I could see small figures moving back and forth inside and I wanted to figure out what they were. One of them came to the doorway to look at the goings-on around the car, and as he came into the light I realized it was a little boy. I gasped and pulled back from the window, grabbing Tobias by the arm. "Look!" I insisted, pulling him over.

Tobias, in his human body at the moment, pressed his face against the window and squinted, but it was clear he couldn't make anything out clearly through the dark glass. "Damn these weak human eyes. What is it?"

"They're keeping kids in there!" I hissed.

Tobias sighed. "You didn't read your dossier very thoroughly, did you?"

"So I skimmed the bit about Burma," I said defensively. "It's not like we'll be here long."

"Burma's military government's been under sanctions from the UN for decades now," Tobias said, shifting into lecture mode. "Human rights violations all over the place, including rigged elections, human trafficking, and, the relevant point, pressing children into military service."

I let that sink in for a moment as the car began to drive out of the checkpoint. "That's messed up," I said at last. "Kids shouldn't have to fight wars. It messes them up."

"Preaching to the choir, Melissa," Tobias said. Sergeant Johnson was sleeping, but we were trying to avoid using my real name whenever we could. "I've been there, remember?"

"Meh. It just sucks." I slumped back into my seat. "I can't wait to be out of this country."

"Don't get too excited about Taungu," Tobias warned. "They're not much better."

I closed my eyes. "I don't even want to hear about it. I'm taking a nap."

Despite knowing it would probably just depress me, a couple hours later I flipped the dossier open to the section on Taungu, which had been updated for us when we got off the ship.

As it turned out, the country wasn't all that different from Burma. A few years back, The two northernmost states, Sagaing and Kachin, along with the northern part of Shan, the easternmost state, had gone rogue and declared war on Burma. After about sixteen months of violent but unproductive conflict, Burma had decided that the war wasn't really worth it and granted the states their independence. They'd named their fledgling nation Taungu after a historical Burmese empire and set up a military junta to rule the new country, although supposedly their figurehead president could overrule them "for the good of the nation." Taungu quickly matched Burma in the human rights and corruption departments, although apparently Marco had been using his monetary influence to try and change things.

Since the Bug Fighter attack, though, everything had gone straight to hell in a handbasket. The tentative hold the junta had maintained on the country had slipped. Anarchy and chaos ruled the day. A few districts near the capital had been brought under control by the military police, but other than that it was every man for himself.

Marco lived nowhere near the capital. In fact, the Chiwan district where he lived was one of the hardest-hit by the Bug Fighter, and consequently one of the most dangerous to be in right now. The chances of Jordan being alive at this point were slim.

All I could do was hope.

* * *

We arrived at the Taungu border at seven o'clock, about an hour late, but the other car was nowhere to be seen. We waited until nine-thirty, but it was clear that something had happened to the car. They weren't responding to our radio hails and hadn't checked in since around four. We had no choice but to proceed across the border alone.

Later on, we found out what had happened.

Some time after the four o'clock check-in, Car 1 was driving on a steep cliff next to a river on their way through Magway. Evidently seeing an opportunity to get away and start a new life, Jeanne Gerard, sitting in the front seat, stealthily slipped the driver's pistol out of its holster as they traveled over an especially rough patch of road. Disabling the safety, she aimed it at his head and told him to stop the car. Lt. Col. Lopez dove forward and grabbed Jeanne's arm, but didn't manage to disarm her before she shot the driver. The car veered off the road and tumbled down the cliffside toward the river. The pistol was thrown out of the car in the ensuing chaos, but by the time the car slammed to a stop on the riverbank, Lopez was already in gorilla form.

Jeanne, buffeted around by the car's fall and unable to think straight, hadn't yet morphed. She leapt through the shattered windshield, morphing a sparrow as she fled. The shifting of her leg bones caught her off-guard and she stumbled as Lopez caught up with her. He threw a piledriver punch at her head, trying to knock her unconscious, but she had found the pistol. Her shot hit Lopez in the shoulder, sending him reeling long enough for her to demorph and switch over to a more combat-oriented morph: A boa constrictor.

By the time Lopez had recovered, Jeanne was already winding her way up his body, trying to reach his neck to strangle him. Unfortunately for Jeanne, she was fighting one of the most accomplished combat morphers in the US military. Before she could even begin to squeeze, he was demorphing, requiring her to shift her grip in order to accomodate his much smaller bulk. This bought him time to morph something which normally would barely be able to fight a constrictor.

The rhino is much less maneuverable than a snake. Its eyesight is horrid. It has no grasping appendages and its main natural weapon is more designed for hitting bulky predators than stabbing narrow targets. But a rhino is much, much bigger than Lt. Col. Lopez. And the morphing process can easily overpower a boa constrictor's muscles.

Unfortunately for Jeanne, she'd overcommitted to the strangulation tactic and had tensed the snake's body too much to get off Lopez in time. There was a horrible cracking, ripping noise as Jeanne was torn into pieces.

Jeanne started to demorph, but the shock from the pain and blood loss overcame her and she slipped into unconsciousness. It was clear she wouldn't regain consciousness before being trapped in this terribly injured mostly-snake form, so Lopez... well, he didn't elaborate when he told us the story, but he said she wouldn't be a problem anymore.

After resting a while, Lopez morphed to duck and started powering his way toward the border.

* * *

It had been a simple matter to get into Taungu. Normally the border patrol wouldn't let anybody in, but who would notice a few owls flying overhead in the evening? Especially when our driver was busy raising Cain at the gate, supposedly trying to get through.

Once inside, there was little risk of being caught. The country was in such an uproar that nobody was going to be checking passports. As owls, we searched for about an hour for a cave where we could spend the night. About a mile from the border crossing we found one that was perfect. It was barely fifty yards from the road, but was well-hidden by brush, boulders, and other detritus.

We crept into the cave, eyes peeled for anything that might also be living there. As we got deeper and the cave grew darker, I started to think I could hear something breathing in the depths.

"Do you guys hear that?" I asked.

"Hear what?" Tobias asked.

I turned to answer him, and saw the shining eyes of the tiger a split second before it leapt. "Duck!" I shouted.

Tobias immediately dropped to the ground, causing the tiger to leap over him and into me, knocking me to the floor of the cave. I began to morph to grizzly, but the tiger roared in my face, interrupting my concentration. _So this is what it's like to fight against Jake_, I thought.

The tiger's mouth shot suddenly toward my exposed throat, but a dingo — Johnson — knocked the beast off of me, clawing and biting at anything he could reach. I jumped up and finished morphing as quickly as I could. I shot a glance over at Tobias. Mostly hawk, but on his way to Hork-Bajir. He'd be able to join the fight soon.

I heard pained yipping from further in the cave. ‹Johnson?›

‹Could use an assist!›

I dropped to all fours and loped toward the back of the cave. The tiger and Johnson were in a standoff, circling each other, but Johnson wasn't using one of his back legs, which was mangled and bleeding badly. The tiger wasn't unharmed, though. It had some serious bites to the snout and the fur of its left flank was heavily matted and soaked in blood. I moved to attack, but the tiger jerked its head in my direction and snarled.

‹This prey is MINE!›

Thought-speech? What the hell was going on?

‹What the hell are you?› I demanded.

‹You can't have it! It's mine! Get out!› the tiger shouted.

A horrible though occurred to me? ‹Jake?›

The tiger spun towards me, roaring as if it had been burned. ‹Don't say that name!›

Johnson saw an opening and lunged for the tiger's wounded flank. It spun to defend against his attack swatting him viciously aside with one massive paw. I seized my opportunity and leapt at the tiger, pinning it to the ground. It flailed its claws and bit wildly, but wasn't hitting me nearly enough to make any difference. Eventually it tired out and sagged limply beneath me.

‹Who are you?› I demanded. This didn't look like Jake's tiger morph, but then again, this tiger was half-starved. If Jake had gotten trapped in morph and had been living feral for these past couple months...

No answer came from the tiger, but I saw that its gaze was fixed on something to my right. I looked over to see Tobias, in Hork-Bajir morph and barely visible in the gloom of the cave, watching the scene.

‹Nice of you to show up,› I groused.

"You had it under control by the time I got here," he said mildly.

The tiger jerked in surprise. I shifted, putting more pressure on its forelegs to hold it more firmly in place. ‹A Hork-Bajir Controller?› it said incredulously. ‹They still exist?›

Tobias only hesitated for a fraction of an instant. "Yes," he lied, coming to us and kneeling down to talk face-to-face with the tiger. "I am Keriss Eight Five Eight of the Sulp Niarr pool."

‹Well met, pool-brother!› the tiger said. ‹I am Varresh Two One Five. Or I was,› he amended, his tone growing bitter, ‹before I was foolish enough to take the deal offered by Jake Berenson.›

Varresh didn't seem inclined to continue attacking us, so I carefully stepped off of him and plodded over to check on Johnson. He was unconscious, but breathing. I demorphed and sat next to him, waiting for him to wake up.

"You chose to become trapped in the form of a tiger?" Tobias was asking behind me.

‹Yes,› Varresh replied, sitting up. ‹As a former Hork-Bajir Controller, I was enticed by the creature's combat prowess. I had seen Berenson use it in combat many times. But what the Yeerk Killer didn't tell us was that we would be relocated to the habitat of the creatures we chose.›

‹That wasn't part of the deal,› Tobias said privately. Aloud, he said, "Interesting. I was off-world at the end of the war, so I missed all that. Did Berenson oversee the relocations himself?"

‹Pah. Far be it from the high-and-mighty leader of the Animorphs to get his hands dirty. The State Department of the United States took care of it themselves.›

‹We may have to bring this up with Cassie when we get back,› Tobias said to me. ‹This should fall under her purview.› He switched back to speech. "I happen to occasionally come into contact with their Secretary of Resident Aliens. If you help us, I could put in a good word."

‹Of course I'll help a pool-brother,› Varresh said. He turned his head to look at me. ‹But who are these?›

"Not Controllers," Tobias replied. "I'm engaging in a bit of an off-the-record mission for the Yeerk Collective. They've got contacts in the US military, who put me in touch with these two."

Varresh thought silently for a moment. ‹Interesting,› he said at last. I wasn't entirely sure he'd bought Tobias's story. ‹Well, if they assist you, then I shall assist them. What do you need?›

"Well for the moment," Tobias said, "we just need to stay the night here. But if you could help us get closer to the cities in the north, it would be appreciated."

‹Of course,› Varresh said easily. He rose and went to the very back of the cave. ‹It is nearly dark now,› he said, laying down and curling around himself. ‹So I hope you don't mind if I sleep now.›

"Go ahead," Tobias said. "We'll join you when our friend comes around." He settled down on the floor of the cave to wait. ‹Tonight's gonna suck for me,› he said privately to me. ‹No sleep. Can't risk getting trapped as a Hork-Bajir.›

I gave him a sympathetic smile and laid down on the floor of the cave, trying to find a rock soft enough to use as a pillow. Eventually I just gave up and used my arms.

As I drifted off, I could've sworn I heard Tobias singing what sounded like a Hork-Bajir lullaby.


End file.
